until they are thirty years old, whereafter they gradually learn that
the very essence of artful language is contained in its pages. There is
not much need of a long word when a short one sounds better. "The Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters." How like the ripple of
a brook the syllables drop from the tongue! The fall of the voice, and
_the fall of the idea_, make the passage a lovely instance of the
highest art in poetical expression. If our youth could be taught
respect, attention, multiplication and division, spelling, short words,
short sentences, Bible, Shakspeare, and geography, and could spend less
time conjugating foreign verbs, there would be a really higher grade of
intelligence in the end, perhaps, and there would, above all, be more of
that glorious independence of mind which makes a thing worthy of
commendation because it is appreciated, not because somebody else has
said it is good.